Hello, This is a newbie question. I'm looking for some insight into why some of the Avasys/epkowa drivers for Epson rely on a proprietary and binary-only plug-in, while many others do not? Are there particular chipsets that have restrictions, preventing Epson from releasing free drivers? What exactly is the non-free portion of the driver doing; is that essentially the entire driver or just a small part? Is there any will on the part of Epson to free any of those drivers? Anyone else here who is working on free replacements? I'll pose the question in generic terms for now, though I realize that the answer would likely have to be broken down by model.
My question boils down to asking whether the Epsons with non-free drivers should be avoided or not, given that I would be fine with using a non-free driver for the moment, but would rather not be bound to it in the long run. I would be willing to do my part to reverse-engineer and replace the non-free part of the driver if that would be more or less straightforward. (I have not yet bought a scanner, but in my area it seems hard to get by any model that does what I want, and that also has open source drivers, at a reasonable price -- and that's true not only for the Epsons.) Thanks, / Martin
